I've made some awesome Flash animations and put them on the net. Well, at this point, it sounds like a good idea that I should make those pay-per-view. Screw free entertainment stemming from individual projects.

You misunderstood my comparisons then. My individual flash animations would be compared to each individual quality mod that you would pay for. Yes, pay per view was the wrong thing to say. What I meant was pay for each individual animation. Not pay every time you want to watch it.

In the internet comparison, in this case, your internet service would be equal to HL2, while a single website would be equal to Garry's mod. Any other website would be a different quality mod that (in your opinion) should be paid for.

I'm not seeing the slippery slope here... Garry's mod is a quality mod that many people enjoy immensely(I'm not one of them, I get frustrated with it easily and I'm not very creative). If the creator can profit from his time invested, all the more power to him. The only way to profit in this type of instance is if you put out a high quality product, creative or not, that many people will enjoy. Say some guy slaps together a halfass mod and gets commercial distribution through Steam somehow. No one is going to buy it because it sucks, everyone loses out.

And I don't think anyone is saying that mod's should be paid for, but those that are successful and popular deserve some sort of reward. Face it, most people aren't going to donate squat to a mod developer for a free mod. They don't deserve to be derided just because they "sold out" and want to make some money for their work.

Bah, I'm tired and I don't think I'm making much sense. The gist of the argument in my mind is somewhere in there, I think.

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You misunderstood my comparisons then. My individual flash animations would be compared to each individual quality mod that you would pay for. Yes, pay per view was the wrong thing to say. What I meant was pay for each individual animation. Not pay every time you want to watch it.

Supply and demand. If people enjoyed your animations enough to pay for them, then why not charge for them? You spent your time on them, did you not?

Quote:

Originally Posted by viper45

In the internet comparison, in this case, your internet service would be equal to HL2, while a single website would be equal to Garry's mod. Any other website would be a different quality mod that (in your opinion) should be paid for.

Last time I checked, pay-per-membership websites didn't do that bad. Then again, pornographic websites do only occupy 12% of the internet and take in 2 billion dollars a year.

Supply and demand. If people enjoyed your animations enough to pay for them, then why not charge for them? You spent your time on them, did you not?
Last time I checked, pay-per-membership websites didn't do that bad. Then again, pornographic websites do only occupy 12% of the internet and take in 2 billion dollars a year.

So yeah, exactly. Supply and demand, the way of the world.

Fine, it was a bad comparison seeing as pay per membership websites already exist. Of course I pay absolutely no attention to them -- just like I will this mod. Unfortunate, really, because I loved messing around in Garry's mod.. but I guess now I'm just going to stick with the "demo" version. Maybe, and I say maybe, if he adds a ton of stuff to it -- I'll buy it.

In my opinion, mods are something that should only be made by people who enjoy game development and want to have a project to work on in their free time. I don't feel that a quality mod should be paid for, unless it becomes a full blown game -- like Counter Strike.

It looks like we're going to have to agree to disagree, because I'm pretty sure neither of us are going to budge. I don't agree with it and you do.

Sorry Viper, but I think it would be every mod-maker's dream to profit from their mod. Sure, small mods can be done just for fun and nothing else, but if you're really putting a lot of work into something, you want to get something out of it. Experience. Something to put on a resume. Those were things I wanted to get out of Serious Fortress before we lost a few members and hit a brick wall looking for artists. But if we had released, and if the Serious Engine had developed into a stronger multiplayer community, and if Croteam and Take Two had asked if we would like to develop it for SS2 and be paid, hell yes would have been my answer. Sure it was something I enjoyed doing in my spare time, and I did it knowing I'd probably never be paid, but isn't anyone's dream job to get paid doing something they enjoy?

Yeah.. and I guess I'm just arguing out of frustration from having to pay for something that's generally free.

Of course anyone would jump at the opportunity to make money for doing anything, especially something they enjoy doing. It's just that mods aren't usually started with money in mind, and when someone hears about a mod, they don't think "wow, I hope I have enough money for it".

I can understand it. I just don't like it. As however natural it is to want to make money off of something, it's just as natural to want to have something for free. lol

The good thing about Steam releasing games likes Dystopia and Garry's Mod is that it is a cheap way to get your game into circulation. No retailer would sell a game for $2, and the creators of Dystopia would have probably gone bankrupt making a game worth $30 that no one would buy anyway. Applications like Steam could possibly be a way for more developers to get into game development, which I think the industry needs.

Indeed, but Darwinia via Steam costs $19.95 USD; a far cry from $2. Ritual did a lot of pussyfooting by heavily implying that the ambiguous price estimation of 'less than twenty dollars' did not mean nineteen dollars and ninetysome cents. But of course SiN Episodes is $19.95. If it were a full length game that'd be great. But it's not.

The Steam model has the promise of cheap games that are very profitable. Right now, the games arenít that cheap. I'm disappointed but not surprised.

Quote:

Originally Posted by LactosetheIntolerant

[...] The only way to profit in this type of instance is if you put out a high quality product, creative or not, that many people will enjoy. Say some guy slaps together a halfass mod and gets commercial distribution through Steam somehow. No one is going to buy it because it sucks, everyone loses out.

Especially Valve. They run the risk of having Steam thought of as a marketplace for crap. If that happens, having Steam distribution becomes a liability not an asset no mater the quality of your game/mod.

__________________con∑scious∑ness (kŏnʹshəs-nĭs) noun
The annoying time between naps.

In my opinion, mods are something that should only be made by people who enjoy game development and want to have a project to work on in their free time. I don't feel that a quality mod should be paid for, unless it becomes a full blown game -- like Counter Strike.

Like I said, I don't have a problem with Garry's mod itself, but I think that if they (whoever is publishing HL2) wish to reward the creator, then they should pay him themselves. And like I said, what happens when they start charging for game ptaches? After all, they spent their time working on them (which they did, but that's what the publisher is there for). Look at what happens with expansions: the most I've seen are either garbage, or they are "extremely good". Unfortunately the latter is usually the case of a game being intentionally stripped of good features just to be able to put them in the expansion and say: "Hey, we thought of tons of new features which weren't in the original (

Of course, we stripped them off of the original, but hey you're not smart enough to realize that, so poo on you

)" - for reference, check Frozen Throne and Lord of Destruction, and I'm pretty sure about Ressurection of Evil, but to be honest, I haven't played it. What makes me suspicious is the gravity gun, I remember how id showed off the physics in their engine, which ended up a few cutscenes.

Also, Os, I honestly can't remember many (if any) good games by EA recently. With Westwood being non-existent, that leaves us with the 10 billion expansions of The Sims (and probably Sims 2) and the FIFA (and probably other sports games) which I've been saying sucked since 2000, yet it took reviewers another 4 years to realize it. So now I'm also skeptical about Spore, which in concept is brilliant, but I'm having a feeling it will go the way of Sims. And then there's the EA spouse case. I hope they actually start making more original content, but I'm still very skeptical. Actually, as far as PC gaming goes, the only publisher that I seem to semi like at this point is Ubisoft, though that probably won't last long either.

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thats how capitalism works. supply.. demand.
If there is no demand, then he won't get money, if there is demand, why should he not reap the rewards of his work? OH right, he's suppose dto be like you and do it for the "fun"

I laugh because i hear this bullshit all the f'in time. In the cg community, people are always saying, they kill for the jobs we have. that we shoudl thank our lucky stars, because we have been graced with theluck and skill to get such and "awsome" job. They would work 80 hours week if they had our job, for minimul pay.. cause its just so ****ing awsome. These were actual comments when the EA work policy came out.

Funny thing though, when you are actualy in the position to work at such a job, or sell a mod. you notice that the ones complaining, aren't and likely won't be in a position to even negotiate anything. They'd work 80hrs a week, for less money.. because they can't. Nobody would even give them a second look. They wouldn't let them work for free.

so get off your soap box, and stop complaining you can't have something for free. $10 buck, woopdydoo. And most mods aren't started by guys who just want a project, they are guys who want to work in the industry, and this is a great way to get started. And most of them do actualy think they'll get paid. i know this, becaus of how many times i've been promised, you'll get paid just as soon as we get published if you work for us. There was a time (a very brief time) i actualy believed that.

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Not that it matters to you, but I do plan on going into this industry, and I have taken part in many mods for games. Not a single time did I go into a mod expecting or wanting to make money off of that project.

Not that it matters to you, but I do plan on going into this industry, and I have taken part in many mods for games. Not a single time did I go into a mod expecting or wanting to make money off of that project.

I guess people just have different passions.

I highly doubt that Garry intended to make money from Day 1 with Garry's Mod. Just like how Entroper stated that when Serious Fortress was in production, he didn't intend to make money from it but if the climate permitted - hell yeah.

****in A'. I congraulate Garry full heartidly. He's charging a very modest amount for a great deal of work and will likely be able to deliver a product greater than that he is currently capable of in the process.

Not initially, maybe. But the end goal is to make money, because without it, the bills don't get paid. He didn't start working on the mod with the outright goal of making money, but when it came down to it, with the large number of bugs and large amount of time he would have to invest in the future of the project, it was either drop working on it altogether or charge some for it. Good for him, quit whining. If you don't like it, don't buy it.

But still, what about all these 12 year olds who are the only people with enough time to use the thing. My mum would've never let me waste £7 on something like that. And a lot of people from countries other than America don't even have credit cards, they just aren't used like they are in US.

do it here... i have loads of funny gmod screens... but i have a prob... my source says i have a non-valid game... but i did buy it in a store.... paid 38 euro's... it sucks... now i can't play garry's mod either....

In my opinion, mods are something that should only be made by people who enjoy game development and want to have a project to work on in their free time. I don't feel that a quality mod should be paid for, unless it becomes a full blown game -- like Counter Strike.

The funny part of that is, CS was a mod. It got better and better over time, and was finally good enough to see a full retail release.

I suspect the same type of thing will happen with Garry's mod. Think about it, see what he's done up to this point using just the free SDK. Once he has the FULL SDK, I'm sure the current garry's mod will be nothing compared to what he'll be able to do.

However. The difference between Garry's mod and CS is once you started paying for counterstrike, it was a full retail game. It was its own title, you didnt need anything else to play it. In a sense, it was a full game. Garry's is different. This is merely a mod. You still need half life 2 to play it. I think that's where viper's frusteration is coming from. It's only a mod, why pay for it? In my mind, it's only ten bucks, that gives him actual real motivation to put time into it, which is cool. It'll help him focus on this (not to mention facewound, cant wait for that to come out.)